


Fire Away

by cloandhazza



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloandhazza/pseuds/cloandhazza
Summary: Meredith Grey sees Europe as an escape - an escape from reality, an escape from her life, an escape from everything her mother wants her to be. She doesn't want to be saved and she definitely doesn't need any help. Derek Shepherd is determined to make her realise that she needs someone - him.





	Fire Away

Meredith Grey, recent Dartmouth grad, was finally doing something that no one had ever expected her to do. Her entire life she had done exactly what had been expected of her - go to the prestigious private schools her mother picked out for her and study hard, stay out of trouble, and make absolutely no waves in any way whatsoever. She had rebelled against it as much as any teenager would be allowed to do in her own ways, from hair dye to her choice of wardrobe when she wasn't forced to wear the preppy clothes her school uniform required her to wear when on campus. This, though? This no one saw coming. She was supposed to enroll at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine in the fall to follow in her mother's footsteps - to become a surgeon and forever live in the shadow of the famed Ellis Grey, surgical royalty. 

Meredith decided to take matters into her own hands. She spent her last term at Dartmouth saving up every single cent of money she earned at her job working at the hospital on the medical school's campus. Her mom had gotten her that job when she had gotten her acceptance letter to the school four years earlier, furthering her daughter into her shadow even more. Well, Meredith had had enough. A week before graduation, she'd finally saved enough money from her job and the large amounts of money her mom's people had sent to her every week. She spent an entire night from sunset to sunrise on her laptop finding the cheapest flight out of Boston to London Heathrow, and arranging places to stay in various cities in Europe. The only mistake she made in executing her plan was telling Derek. 

Derek Shepherd was the only good friend Meredith had made throughout her years as an undergraduate. She was disgusted by all the rich snobs that she had known her entire life from private schools, and it only got worse once she started at an Ivy League school. Derek, though, Derek was different. Derek had grown up in Maine, with a four sisters and a dead father. He had never known snobby. He was grateful for everything he had and everything he worked for - and that included Meredith. They had most of their classes together since they were both on the same track - Pre-Med. He was majoring in Neuroscience while she was in the simpler Biology program. 

Meredith had planned on going on a long trip across all of Europe on her own, and that was the plan for a long time. Until she told Derek, that is. Once Derek caught wind of what she had been planning on late nights spent hunched over her computer in bed, he booked seats next to her on the same flights and rooms in all the same hostels and hotels. He was going with her - because he didn't think it was a good idea for her to go alone. Meredith hated the fact that he was so protective of her, always asking how she was doing and if she was alright. She told him once about her mother and everything that she entailed, and ever since then Derek had acted differently around her. It was as if he thought he could save her from herself or something. Well, Meredith Grey didn't need any saving, thank you very much. Yes, she might not be in the greatest of mental states, but who was? It wasn't like she was depressed or anything. She just struggled with her family - which was normal, right?

Her flight to London was the overnight from Boston following graduation. She had traveled home to stay at her mother's house following the ceremony for the week's interim, choosing not to tell anyone about her plans until the night she left. She left a note on her bed for either her mom or the servants Meredith disliked having (she could clean up after herself, thank you very much) to find once they realised she was gone, and headed out to Boston Logan airport. She was relaxed more than ever as she made her way through the mundane series of tasks that preceded getting into the airport, getting through check in and security in a breeze. She had left a while before she actually needed to be there resulting in her arriving at the gate almost two entire hours before she was scheduled to board. She set her backpack down on the chair next to her before stretching her legs out in front of her and pulling out the book she had been reading - a trashy chick-lit book that depicted sex in extremely unrealistic situations. She delighted in reading things of the sort, it was her guilty pleasure. No one could judge her from finding pleasure in reading. 

"The Italian Stallion? I thought Dartmouth taught us better, Grey, what happened to reading Dante and Homer?" A familiar voice sounded to her right. She was ripped out of the fantasy world the book had immersed her in as she realised exactly who was sat next to her, opting to slap him across the chest with said book. 

"Derek Shepherd, what in the fuck are you doing here?" She narrowed her eyes at him, hoping he was simply stopping through for a flight to the other side of the country. Actually, make it the other side of the earth. Please God, let him be going anywhere other than London. 

"I'm going to London with you, silly! I thought you would like a friend on your currently six month long trip around Europe." He grinned his signature shit-eating grin at her. "And I told Geisel to defer my enrollment by a year, so I have a year to spare. We're going to travel around Europe together!"

Meredith glared at the over-exuberant man sitting next to her. She thought she would never actually have to see him again, never have to hear his too-damn-perfect voice voice again, never have to take in his overly-perfect hair again. No, it wasn't that she liked him in a more-than-friends way - it was quite the opposite. She wanted to get rid of him. She thought he was better off with a girl that had too-perfect hair and a shit-eating grin to match his. She definitely wasn't the person she would've picked for Derek Shepherd's closest friend. Well, not his closest friend. There was that Mark guy that he always talked about, that had graduated from some school in New York a year before they had. Meredith was Derek's second best friend, and that made absolutely no sense to her. Why, of all people, had he picked her? Shaking her head, she threw her thoughts away and turned back to him to speak. "I think you should gather your things and go home to your mother. See your sisters, your Mark, your precious cat you missed so much. Maine needs you more than Europe does."

"Ah, I disagree. Maine has had an entire week of me. Mark is in New York working over the summer to pay for med school, and all my sisters are doing some variation of what Mark's doing. My mom has her summer camp to run and she hates you for taking away her best counselor. As for the cat, Whiskers died over spring break. Could've sworn I told you that."

"Seriously?" Meredith asked incredulously. 

"Seriously. I am free for an entire year, Meredith. You don't have to go on this alone. Besides, I think a trip like this would be better experienced as a pair, right?"

"How did you even know I was leaving tonight? All I said was I was travelling Europe before med school." She stopped for a moment as what he said registered in her mind further. "How did you even find out I had deferred my enrollment?!"

"I have my ways, Grey. You should know that by now." He smirked at her as he crossed his arms over his muscular chest. 

Meredith huffed in response and mirrored his slouch in the chair, crossing her arms over her own chest. They sat next to each other in silence until the flight attendants started announcing boarding groups for their flight. She glanced over at him, hoping with every piece of her soul that they would be as far from each other as possible on an airplane. She was already developing a plan for abandoning him after a day or two in London to avoid from having her entire trip invaded. She stood up immediately after she heard her group called, and much to her dismay, Derek shot up as well. He followed her to the line of people boarding, standing close behind her as they inched forward to scan their tickets. She refused to turn around as she stalked down the long jet bridge towards the plane door. She nodded in hello to the flight attendants at the door, finding her seat as quickly as she could and situating her suitcases. She struggled to reach the overhead compartment, getting closer and closer to full on rage with every failed attempt to reach the luggage compartment.

She felt his hand on the small of her back and the other on top of the hand on her suitcase before she heard his voice again. "Here, let me help with that." Derek took the suitcase from her and lifted it into the compartment in one fluid motion, grinning at her as she gaped at him. "This is my seat, in the middle. Can you excuse me?"

She stood there dumbfounded for a moment before she realised she was supposed to be sitting in the window seat. "Uh, let me sit down first." It wasn't until she was buckled and sitting there staring at the tray table in front of her that it settled in - she was sitting next to Derek Shepherd for a freaking intercontinental flight. "Wait, why the hell is your seat next to mine?"

He simply turned to her with his signature shit-eating grin plastered over his face. "I have my ways, Meredith Grey."

This was going to be the longest flight ever. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know I have an unfinished story sitting neglected, but I have been having severe writer's block towards that story for months now. I figured it was better to try out another plot as I mulled over where I wanted Four Seasons to go, and I whipped this out in an hour. I'm actually planning out where I'm going with this story rather than seeing where my muse takes me like with Four Seasons, so expect a better plot and overall story with this. 
> 
> Also, for those who won't get the reference made by the title, Niall Horan wrote a song titled Fire Away on his debut album, Flicker. I was listening to it and the idea for this story just came to me, and it was on repeat the entire time I was writing this chapter. I highly recommend giving it a listen, and I'll mention it again when we come to the chapter that it's really relevant for.


End file.
